How to store a string var greater than varchar(max)?

Question

I\'m trying to do this:

DECLARE @myVar VARCHAR(MAX)
Loop with cursor
select @myVar = @myVar + bla bla bla
end loop

When the loop ends, @myV

Answer 1

Seriously - VARCHAR(MAX) can store up to 2 GB of data - not just 8000 characters.....

Try this:

DECLARE @myVar VARCHAR(MAX) = ''

DECLARE @ix INT = 1

WHILE @ix < 1000
BEGIN
    set @myVar = @myVar + CAST('bla bla bla' AS VARCHAR(MAX))
    SET @ix = @ix + 1
END

SELECT DATALENGTH(@myvar)

This will return a value higher than 8000 characters after 1000 iterations.

The point is: if you're using varchar(max), you need to make sure to always cast all your strings to varchar(max) explicitly - as I did in this example. Otherwise, SQL Server will fall back to "regular" varchar processing, and that's indeed limited to 8000 characters....